plenary indulgences for the faithful reading of the Scriptures. If all this is
not enough the following words of the Popes should end all debate:
“the Church has never failed in taking due measures to bring the
Scriptures within reach of her children, and that she has ever held
fast and exercised profitably that guardianship conferred upon her by
Almighty God for the protection and glory of His holy Word; so that
she has never required, nor does she now require, any stimulation
from without.”¹
“a whole multitude of Doctors … have sifted the Sacred Books in
every way, and … have thanked God more and more heartily the
more deeply they have gone into them, for His divine bounty in
having vouchsafed to speak thus to men.”²
“Wherefore we exhort all the Church’s children, and especially those
whose duty it is to teach in seminaries, to follow closely in St.
Jerome’s footsteps. If they will but do so they will learn to prize as
he prized the treasure of the Scriptures, and will derive from them
most abundant and blessed fruit.”³
These same Popes simultaneously attacked those who sought to deny the
divine inspiration of the Scriptures, who found in them alleged errors and
contradictions, who claimed they were forgeries made after the event, or
who taught that they were simply collections of myths, stories and
exaggerations:
“They deny that there is any such thing as revelation or inspiration,
or Holy Scripture at all; they see, instead, only the forgeries and the
falsehoods of men; they set down the Scripture narratives as stupid
fables and lying stories: the prophecies and the oracles of God are to
them either predictions made up after the event or forecasts formed
by the light of nature; the miracles and the wonders of God’s power
are not what they are said to be, but the startling effects of natural
1
Pope Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, 1893.
2
Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, 1907.
3
Pope Benedict XV, Spiritus Paraclitus, 1920.
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